Lupeikiene A., Matulevičius R., Vasilecas O. (eds.): Baltic DB&IS 2018 Joint Proceedings of the Conference Forum and Doctoral Consortium. Copyright © 2018 for this paper by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes. What Software Test Approaches, Methods, and Techniques are Actually Used in Software Industry? Laura Strazdiņa, 1[0000-0002-3359-7099] , Vineta Arnicane 1[0000-0003-3942-9229] , Guntis Arnicans 1[0000-0002-8626-7595] , Jānis Bičevskis 1[0000-0001-5298-9859] , Juris Borzovs 1[0000-0001-7009-6384] , and Ivans Kuļešovs 2[0000-0002-7690-2807] 1 Faculty of Computing, University of Latvia, Raiņa bulvāris 19, LV-1586, Riga, Latvia 2 SIA ”C.T.Co”, Meistaru iela 33, Valdlauči, Ķekavas novads, LV-1076, Riga, Latvia laurastrazdina7@gmail.com, ivans.kulesovs@gmail.com {vineta.arnicane,guntis.arnicans,janis.bicevskis,juris.borzovs}@lu.lv Abstract. This paper presents the findings of, to the best of our knowledge, the first survey on software testing practices carried out in Latvian ICT industry. A total of 19 organizations participated in the survey, which was conducted in 2018. The survey focused on major aspects of software testing, namely testing approaches, strategies, methodologies, methods, and techniques. Based on the survey results, current practices in software testing are reported, as well as some observations and recommendations for the future of software testing in Latvia for industry and academia. Keywords: Software testing, Software industry, Test approach, Test method, Test technique 1 Introduction As Schaefer put it [1], systematic testing of software or systems can be learned, just like any engineering discipline. There are tester knowledge certification schemes: ISTQB, ISEB, GTB [2-4], there are books by Myers et al., Beizer, Kaner et al., to mention just few [5-7], and there are standards, e.g., ISTQB Glossary, BS 7925, IEEE 829, 1008, 1012, 29119, SWEBOK [8-11]. At least the books and most of the standards have been around for a long time, and many techniques are widely accepted. This means testing can actually be studied and then executed in some systematic way. For a tester or test engineer, there are two major activities: designing test cases, and executing test cases and observing and analyzing results. If the results are not like expected, deviations must be reported and followed up. Additionally, modern methods, like exploratory testing [12], run-time verification [13-14] include tasks like automation and management of testing time in the tester’s task list. The normal way of doing this job is to learn some techniques, follow these techniques, execute the test, and conclude the work with a test report. However, books and standards describe a lot of different ways (strategies, approaches, methodologies, methods, techniques) to perform testing [e.g., 15]. Are all